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VESPER Out-of-Band OOB
draft-wendt-stir-vesper-oob-03

Document Type Active Internet-Draft (individual)
Authors Chris Wendt , Robert Śliwa
Last updated 2026-07-06
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draft-wendt-stir-vesper-oob-03
Secure Telephone Identity Revisited                             C. Wendt
Internet-Draft                                                  R. Śliwa
Intended status: Standards Track                              Somos Inc.
Expires: 7 January 2027                                      6 July 2026

                         VESPER Out-of-Band OOB
                     draft-wendt-stir-vesper-oob-03

Abstract

   This document describes a mechanism for delivering authenticated
   telephone call identity information using the VESPER framework for
   use where in-band signaling does not carry the identity end to end,
   or where there is no in-band path between the parties at all.  By
   supporting an out-of-band (OOB) transport model, this approach
   enables entities to publish and retrieve signed PASSporT assertions
   independent of end-to-end delivery within an in-band signaling path
   such as a SIP-based VoIP network.  These PASSporTs are signed with
   VESPER delegate certificates, which identify the entity holding the
   right-to-use for a telephone number and bind it to that entity's
   domain identity.  This document also introduces support for Connected
   Identity to the STIR OOB model, enabling the called party to respond
   with a signed PASSporT asserting its identity, thereby binding the
   identities of both parties to the transaction and enhancing end-to-
   end accountability.  The OOB mechanism provides a delivery path for
   PASSporTs where in-band delivery within a signaling path such as SIP
   is unavailable or is not the path used, enabling verifiers to confirm
   the association between the originating telephone number and the
   identity asserting authority as part of the broader VESPER trust
   framework.

About This Document

   This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.

   The latest revision of this draft can be found at
   https://github.com/appliedbits/draft-wendt-stir-vesper-oob.  Status
   information for this document may be found at
   https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-wendt-stir-vesper-oob/.

   Discussion of this document takes place on the Secure Telephone
   Identity Revisited Working Group mailing list (mailto:stir@ietf.org),
   which is archived at https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/stir/.
   Subscribe at https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/stir/.

   Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
   https://github.com/appliedbits/draft-wendt-stir-vesper-oob.

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Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on 7 January 2027.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2026 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/
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   Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
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   provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Conventions and Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   3.  VESPER OOB Architectural Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   4.  VESPER OOB Mechanism  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     4.1.  Operations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     4.2.  Required Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     4.3.  Mechanism Flow  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   5.  Authentication Service Procedures for VESPER OOB  . . . . . .  10
     5.1.  Delegate Certificate Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     5.2.  PASSporT Construction Requirements  . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   6.  PPS URI and OOB PPS Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   7.  Verification Service Procedures for VESPER OOB  . . . . . . .  12
     7.1.  Retrieval and Validation Process  . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
     7.2.  PASSporT Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     7.3.  Connected Identity Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13

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   8.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
   9.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
   10. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
     10.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
     10.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17

1.  Introduction

   The STIR framework enables the signing and verification of telephone
   communications using PASSporT [RFC8225] objects carried in SIP
   [RFC3261] in Identity Header Fields defined in [RFC8224].  However,
   there are scenarios where SIP-based in-band transmission is not
   feasible or the Identity Header Field may not be supported, such as
   legacy TDM interconnects or where intermediary network elements strip
   SIP Identity headers.  STIR Out-of-Band (OOB) [RFC8816] addresses
   this generally for STIR by defining an OOB delivery model.  [RFC9888]
   applies that model to interconnected service providers, using
   provider-operated placement services discovered through service-
   provider advertisements, whereas this document applies the model to
   entities identified by VESPER delegate certificates, with placement
   services discovered through certificate transparency.

   The VESPER framework [I-D.wendt-stir-vesper] composes existing STIR
   mechanisms into a trust framework in which an entity is identified by
   a domain identifier bound to its telephone number right-to-use,
   carried in a telephone-number-scoped delegate certificate.  This
   document relies on that framework for the definition, issuance, and
   verification of VESPER delegate certificates and does not restate
   them here; it defines how PASSporTs signed with those certificates
   are delivered out of band.

   This document describes how the VESPER framework is applied to an
   out-of-band delivery mechanism corresponding to the model described
   in [RFC8816].  It enables authorized delegate certificate holders to
   deliver PASSporTs over an out-of-band path for retrieval and
   validation by a STIR Verification Service, maintaining continuity of
   trust across heterogeneous networks.

   The VESPER OOB delivery model is based on a publish-and-retrieve
   interface using an open discovery model for PASSporT Placement
   Services (PPS).  This document describes the publish-and-retrieve
   mechanism and its required properties, building on the concepts in
   [RFC8816], rather than prescribing a specific interface.  It utilizes
   the following:

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   *  A mechanism for announcing the associated OOB PASSporT Placement
      Services (PPSs) using the PPS URI attribute of the TN Attributes
      extension defined in [I-D.wendt-stir-cert-tn-attr-ext].

   *  A discovery mechanism for OOB endpoints using STI certificate
      transparency log monitoring, where PPS URIs carried in delegate
      certificates become publicly discoverable when those certificates
      are logged.

   It also optionally supports Connected Identity [RFC9970], enabling
   both parties to authenticate their telephone numbers and establish
   end-to-end identity assurance, as also adopted by VESPER
   [I-D.wendt-stir-vesper].

2.  Conventions and Definitions

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
   BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
   capitals, as shown here.

   VESPER: Verifiable STI Presentation and Evidence for RTU
   [I-D.wendt-stir-vesper].

   PASSporT: Personal Assertion Token as defined in [RFC8225].

   Delegate Certificate: A certificate issued to an entity asserting
   right-to-use for a telephone number, based on an authority token, as
   defined in [RFC9060] and profiled in [I-D.wendt-stir-vesper].

   Authority Token: A signed assertion that authorizes the issuance of a
   delegate certificate and represents the authorization of a subject's
   right-to-use a telephone number and any associated claims, defined in
   [RFC9447].

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   PASSporT Placement Service (PPS): The service that stores signed
   PASSporTs published by an originating party and serves them to an
   authorized retrieving party, and that supports the optional Connected
   Identity response exchange.  Earlier STIR out-of-band work, notably
   [RFC8816], refers to this role as a Call Placement Service (CPS).
   This document uses PASSporT Placement Service for two reasons.
   First, the CPS acronym collides with Certification Practice Statement
   (CPS) as used in [RFC8226] and certificate policy practice generally,
   which is a recurring source of ambiguity in a document that deals
   with both certificates and this service.  Second, the service places
   and serves PASSporTs and is not limited to telephone calls; the same
   mechanism is intended to apply to applications beyond telephone
   calls, for which a PASSporT-centric name is more accurate.

   PPS URI: A URI [RFC3986] identifying a PASSporT Placement Service
   (PPS), carried in the pps-uris attribute (type 1) of the TN
   Attributes extension [I-D.wendt-stir-cert-tn-attr-ext].  The PPS URI
   identifies the PASSporT Placement Service (PPS) for the telephone
   numbers covered by the certificate.

   PPS Discovery: The process of identifying the PPS endpoint
   responsible for a given telephone number by monitoring STI-CT logs
   for delegate certificates carrying a PPS URI attribute as defined in
   [I-D.wendt-stir-cert-tn-attr-ext].

3.  VESPER OOB Architectural Overview

   The VESPER OOB architecture enables the out-of-band signing,
   publishing, discovery, and verification of PASSporTs using a trust
   framework based on delegate certificates and transparency mechanisms.
   The out-of-band path is a general mechanism for delivering PASSporTs
   from an originating party to a destination party, independent of any
   particular signaling protocol.  It may operate alongside an in-band
   signaling path, such as a SIP call in which the PASSporT would
   otherwise travel in an Identity header field, or it may be the sole
   channel between the two parties, as in messaging, non-SIP signaling,
   or other applications where there is no in-band path to carry the
   PASSporT.  Figure 1 illustrates the flow of identity data between the
   authentication service, the out-of-band PASSporT Placement Service
   (PPS), and the verification service, with the in-band signaling path
   shown as an optional parallel path.

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           +--------------------+  Originate communication over an
           |   Authentication   |  in-band signaling path, if any
           |     Service        |  (e.g. SIP INVITE with RFC8224
           | (Originating Party)|   Identity Header Field)
           +---------+----------+-------------------+
                     |                              |
                     | 1. Publish PASSporT with     |
                     |    Delegate Certificate      |
                     v                          .~~~~~~~~~~.
           +---------+----------+           .-''             '-.
           |        PPS         |        ,.'    In-band         '.
           |                    |       /    signaling path     |
           +---------+----------+      |    (e.g. SIP), if any  /
                     ^                  '.___..~~~~~~..______.'
                     |                              |
                     | 2. Retrieve PASSporT         |
                     |                              |
           +---------+----------+                   |
           |    Verification    |                   |
           |      Service       |<------------------+
           | (Destination Party)|  Receive communication over the
           +--------------------+  in-band signaling path, if any

   Figure 1 - Architecture showing out-of-band PASSporT delivery
   alongside an optional in-band signaling path

4.  VESPER OOB Mechanism

   This section describes how PASSporTs are delivered out of band
   through a PASSporT Placement Service (PPS), and how Connected
   Identity allows the called party to return a signed response.
   Following the approach of [RFC8816], this document describes the
   mechanism and the properties an implementation must preserve, rather
   than prescribing a specific API.  A PPS interface that provides these
   operations and preserves these properties is conformant; implementers
   may adopt an existing publish-and-retrieve interface or define their
   own.

4.1.  Operations

   The mechanism is built from three operations against a PPS:

   *  Publish: the originating party places one or more signed PASSporTs
      for a given originating and destination pair into the PPS, so they
      can be retrieved by the destination party.  A publish operation
      MAY also request a Connected Identity exchange, in which case the
      PPS returns a transaction handle that identifies the exchange.

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   *  Retrieve: the destination party obtains the PASSporTs published
      for a given originating and destination pair, and, where a
      Connected Identity exchange was requested, learns the transaction
      handle.

   *  Respond: where Connected Identity is in use, the destination party
      places a signed response PASSporT against the transaction handle,
      which the originating party then retrieves.

   Each operation is authorized by the requesting party signing its
   request with its VESPER delegate certificate, so that the PPS and the
   counterparty can confirm the requester is authorized for the
   telephone number involved.  The integrity of the published PASSporTs
   is bound to that authorization so that stored content cannot be
   substituted.  The mechanism used to convey and authorize these
   operations is not defined here; an implementation may use any
   mechanism that authenticates the requesting party and protects the
   integrity of the request.

4.2.  Required Properties

   An implementation of the VESPER OOB mechanism preserves the following
   properties, however the PPS interface is realized.  Some of these
   properties are guaranteed cryptographically by the signed request and
   the signed PASSporT, while others are enforced by the PPS as a
   relied-upon party; the Security Considerations section discusses this
   distinction and its consequences.

   *  Authorization: publish, retrieve, and respond requests are
      authorized by the requesting party using its VESPER delegate
      certificate.  The PPS and the counterparty can verify that the
      requester is authorized for the originating or destination
      identifier it is acting for, consistent with the certificate's
      TNAuthList.

   *  Scoping: retrieval is scoped to a specific originating and
      destination pair, so that a party can obtain only the PASSporTs
      intended for an exchange it is part of.

   *  Integrity: the authorization of a publish or respond request is
      bound to the PASSporT content it carries, so that the stored
      PASSporTs cannot be altered or substituted without detection.

   *  Replay resistance: requests are protected against replay, for
      example through a unique request identifier and a freshness
      window, and are scoped to a single transaction rather than reused.

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   *  Confidentiality of the exchange: in a Connected Identity exchange,
      the transaction handle and the response are disclosed only to the
      parties of the original transaction.  In particular, the response
      is made available only to the party that performed the original
      publish.

   *  Transport security: all PPS interactions occur over a server-
      authenticated secure transport.

4.3.  Mechanism Flow

   The following sequence illustrates the mechanism.  Steps 1 and 2 are
   the basic publish-and-retrieve flow for delivering a PASSporT from
   the originating party (A) to the destination party (B).  Steps 3 and
   4 are the optional Connected Identity exchange, in which B returns a
   signed response PASSporT for A to retrieve.

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      A (Originating)              PPS               B (Destination)
           |                         |                       |
           | 1. Publish PASSporT(s)  |                       |
           |    for (orig=A,dest=B), |                       |
           |    authorized by A's    |                       |
           |    delegate certificate |                       |
           | ----------------------> |                       |
           |   (handle, if Connected |                       |
           |     Identity requested) |                       |
           | <---------------------- |                       |
           |                         |  2. Retrieve PASSporT(s)
           |                         |     for (orig=A,dest=B),
           |                         |     authorized by B's
           |                         |     delegate certificate
           |                         | <-------------------- |
           |                         |  PASSporT(s) (+ handle
           |                         |  if Connected Identity)
           |                         | --------------------> |
           |                         |                       |
           |                         |  3. Respond with rsp  |
           |                         |     PASSporT against  |
           |                         |     handle, authorized
           |                         |     by B's delegate cert
           |                         | <-------------------- |
           | 4. Retrieve rsp         |                       |
           |    PASSporT for handle, |                       |
           |    authorized by A's    |                       |
           |    delegate certificate |                       |
           | ----------------------> |                       |
           | <---------------------- |                       |
           |    rsp PASSporT         |                       |
           |                         |                       |

   Figure 2 - VESPER OOB publish/retrieve (steps 1-2) and optional
   Connected Identity exchange (steps 3-4)

   In the basic flow, A publishes the PASSporTs it would otherwise have
   carried in the SIP Identity header field, and B retrieves and
   verifies them as part of terminating the call.  In the Connected
   Identity flow, the transaction handle returned at publish ties B's
   response to the original transaction.  B can respond only after
   retrieving the original PASSporTs, so that it has had the opportunity
   to verify A before asserting its own identity, and only A, as the
   original publisher, can retrieve B's response.  The verification of
   the retrieved PASSporTs, in both directions, is described in the
   verification procedures below.

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5.  Authentication Service Procedures for VESPER OOB

   Authentication Services that sign PASSporTs for out-of-band delivery
   follow the core VESPER specification [I-D.wendt-stir-vesper],
   together with the additional procedures in this section that are
   specific to the out-of-band case.

   The role of the Authentication Service is to author the PASSporT: to
   construct and sign it using the VESPER delegate certificate and the
   VESPER PASSporT usage profile, asserting the originating identity.
   This authored PASSporT is the same artifact regardless of how it is
   delivered.  In the in-band case it travels with the communication,
   for example in a SIP Identity header field; in the out-of-band case
   it is the PASSporT placed in the PASSporT Placement Service (PPS) for
   the destination party to retrieve.  Out-of-band delivery may be the
   sole path between the two parties, as in messaging or other
   applications where there is no in-band path that can carry the
   PASSporT, or it may run alongside an in-band copy of the same
   PASSporT.  In all of these cases the authoring of the PASSporT is
   unchanged; what is specific to out-of-band operation is that the
   authored PASSporT is published to a PPS rather than, or in addition
   to, being carried in band.  The subsections below state the
   certificate properties this relies on and the delivery step that is
   specific to out-of-band operation.

5.1.  Delegate Certificate Requirements

   Certificates used to sign PASSporTs in VESPER OOB are VESPER delegate
   certificates as defined and profiled in [I-D.wendt-stir-vesper]; this
   document adds no requirements on the certificate beyond those of
   VESPER other than the one specific to out-of-band discovery below.

   For out-of-band operation, the signing certificate MUST carry one or
   more PPS URIs in the pps-uris attribute of the TN Attributes
   extension [I-D.wendt-stir-cert-tn-attr-ext], enabling discovery of
   the associated OOB PASSporT Placement Service (PPS) as described in
   the PPS URI and OOB PPS Discovery section.

5.2.  PASSporT Construction Requirements

   PASSporTs delivered over VESPER OOB are constructed and signed as
   defined in the VESPER PASSporT usage profile [I-D.wendt-stir-vesper].
   VESPER OOB adds no requirements on the content of the PASSporT
   itself; the orig, dest, and iat claims and the x5c and x5u headers
   are populated as that profile specifies.

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   The one requirement specific to OOB is delivery: rather than, or in
   addition to, carrying the PASSporT in a SIP Identity header field,
   the Authentication Service publishes the signed PASSporT to the PPS
   identified by the PPS URI in the signing certificate, using the
   publish operation of the VESPER OOB mechanism.

6.  PPS URI and OOB PPS Discovery

   PPS URIs are associated with VESPER delegate certificates through the
   pps-uris attribute (type 1) of the TN Attributes extension defined in
   [I-D.wendt-stir-cert-tn-attr-ext].  This attribute carries one or
   more HTTPS URIs identifying the PPS endpoints responsible for
   publishing and serving PASSporTs for the telephone numbers covered by
   the certificate's TNAuthList.

   When a VESPER delegate certificate carrying a PPS URI attribute is
   submitted to a Secure Telephone Identity Certificate Transparency
   (STI-CT) log [I-D.ietf-stir-certificate-transparency], the PPS URI
   becomes publicly visible and verifiable.  Parties that wish to
   discover the PPS for a given telephone number do so by monitoring
   STI-CT logs for delegate certificates that carry a PPS URI attribute,
   extracting the telephone numbers and PPS URI from each certificate,
   and associating the covered telephone numbers with the indicated PPS
   endpoint.  This approach provides a transparent, cryptographically
   verifiable discovery mechanism that does not require bilateral
   provisioning or static configuration between service providers.

   The discovery process follows these steps:

   1.  A VESPER delegate certificate carrying a TNAuthList and a PPS URI
       attribute is issued and submitted to a STI-CT log, generating an
       SCT.

   2.  A monitoring party observes the log, verifies the certificate
       chain to a trusted STI root, validates the SCT, and extracts the
       telephone-number-to-PPS mappings.

   3.  Authentication Services and Verification Services consult these
       mappings to identify the appropriate PPS endpoint for a given
       call.

   4.  PASSporTs are published or retrieved using the discovered PPS URI
       as part of the OOB authentication process.

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   Implementations MAY maintain local caches of telephone-number-to-PPS
   mappings, respecting certificate validity periods when using
   extracted data.  PPS operators SHOULD publish delegate certificates
   in multiple STI-CT logs to ensure broad visibility.  The PPS URI MUST
   resolve to a reachable and operational PPS that supports the VESPER
   OOB mechanism defined in this document.

   The mechanism permits a certificate to carry more than one PPS URI,
   so that an operator can advertise multiple PPS instances, including
   regional or edge instances.  Where multiple instances are advertised,
   an implementation can select among them or fail over between them
   using local policy such as lowest latency or geographic proximity.
   The degree of redundancy that is appropriate is a matter of
   deployment experience and local policy, and is not specified here.

7.  Verification Service Procedures for VESPER OOB

   Verification Services that retrieve and validate PASSporTs via the
   VESPER OOB model MUST implement the following procedures in addition
   to those defined fundamentally in [RFC8224] and specific to VESPER
   defined in [I-D.wendt-stir-vesper].

7.1.  Retrieval and Validation Process

   *  PPS URI Resolution: Determine the PPS URI for the given telephone
      number by consulting telephone-number-to-PPS mappings derived from
      monitoring STI-CT logs for delegate certificates carrying a PPS
      URI attribute, as described in the PPS URI and OOB PPS Discovery
      section of this document.

   *  PASSporT Retrieval: Perform the retrieve operation of the VESPER
      OOB mechanism against the resolved PPS, scoped to the originating
      and destination pair and authorized by the verifier's VESPER
      delegate certificate, as described in the VESPER OOB Mechanism
      section.

   *  Multiple PASSporT Handling: If the retrieved response contains
      multiple PASSporTs, the verifier MUST validate each PASSporT
      independently.  All PASSporTs MUST share the same orig, dest, and
      iat values and MUST be signed by the same delegate certificate.
      If any PASSporT fails validation, the verifier SHOULD reject the
      entire set and SHOULD log the failure for diagnostic purposes.
      The verifier MAY apply local policy to determine which PASSporT
      types are actionable.

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7.2.  PASSporT Validation

   Once retrieved, the verifier validates the PASSporT and its signing
   certificate exactly as specified by the VESPER framework
   [I-D.wendt-stir-vesper], which applies the procedures of [RFC8224]
   and the VESPER certificate and binding checks.  VESPER OOB places no
   additional requirements on this validation and does not modify it;
   the only difference from the in-band case is that the PASSporT was
   obtained by retrieval from the PPS rather than from a SIP Identity
   header field.  The verifier applies the full VESPER verification to
   each retrieved PASSporT before relying on it, so that end-to-end
   trust in the originating identity is established even across
   heterogeneous network paths or in the absence of SIP Identity header
   delivery.

7.3.  Connected Identity Validation

   When a Connected Identity response PASSporT (rsp) is retrieved by the
   Verification Service (VS), it MUST be validated in accordance with
   [RFC9970] and the VESPER framework [I-D.wendt-stir-vesper].  The rsp
   PASSporT and its signing certificate are validated using the full
   VESPER verification, as for any VESPER PASSporT; the requirements
   below are those specific to the Connected Identity response in the
   out-of-band context.

   The rsp PASSporT MUST be signed using a VESPER delegate certificate
   valid for the dest telephone number of the original call.  The
   distinction from originating-direction verification is that the
   responder is asserting control over the dest number, so the signing
   certificate's TNAuthList MUST authorize that number.

   The VS MUST confirm that the orig and dest claims in the rsp PASSporT
   match those of the original transaction, and that the iat claim is
   within an acceptable freshness interval as defined by local policy.

   If these validations succeed, the verifier can confirm that the
   called party has cryptographically asserted its identity using a
   VESPER-authorized certificate, completing the Connected Identity
   flow.  Any failure MUST cause the rsp PASSporT to be rejected.

8.  Security Considerations

   PASSporTs in VESPER OOB are signed using VESPER delegate
   certificates, which a verifier validates using the full VESPER
   verification [I-D.wendt-stir-vesper].  This dependence on the signed
   PASSporT and its VESPER delegate certificate, rather than on the
   delivery path, is what allows a verifier to establish the originating
   identity independently of how the PASSporT was delivered out of band.

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   The publish, retrieve, and respond operations are authorized as
   described in the VESPER OOB Mechanism section, with each request
   signed by the requesting party's VESPER delegate certificate, scoped
   to a single transaction, and protected against replay through a
   unique request identifier and a short freshness window.  Because the
   integrity of a published PASSporT is bound to that authorization,
   stored content cannot be substituted without detection.

   A PPS is not assumed to be an openly writable, anonymously accessible
   endpoint.  PPS operators are expected to administer their own
   admission controls governing which parties may reach the service at
   all, for example through operator-managed credentials, peering
   arrangements, or network-level access policy.  The design of that
   admission layer is a matter for the operator and is out of scope for
   this document.  Within an admitted context, the requirement that each
   operation be signed by the requesting party's VESPER delegate
   certificate is what authorizes the specific action on a specific
   telephone number.  This is an appropriate use of the delegate
   certificate: the certificate is the cryptographic representation of
   the subject's right-to-use for the telephone numbers in its
   TNAuthList, so a request signed by it, and scoped to those numbers,
   expresses exactly the authorization needed to publish or retrieve
   PASSporTs for them.  A party cannot use this mechanism to publish for
   a telephone number it does not hold a valid certificate for.

   The authentication of the requester and the integrity of each
   PASSporT are cryptographic and do not depend on the PPS behaving
   honestly: a verifier validates each retrieved PASSporT and its
   signing certificate independently, so a misbehaving or compromised
   PPS cannot cause acceptance of a forged or altered identity
   assertion.  Other properties, such as scoping retrieval to the
   intended originating and destination pair and keeping a Connected
   Identity exchange confidential to its two parties, are enforced by
   the PPS as a relied-upon party rather than guaranteed
   cryptographically by the signed request alone.  A compromised PPS
   could therefore affect the availability of PASSporTs, or the
   confidentiality and scoping of an exchange, even though it cannot
   forge the identities asserted within.  The degree of additional
   assurance an operator places on PPS behavior is a matter of
   deployment and local policy.

   In a Connected Identity exchange, the transaction handle and the
   response are sensitive.  The Confidentiality property required in the
   VESPER OOB Mechanism section limits their disclosure to the parties
   of the original transaction, with the response made available only to
   the party that performed the original publish.  A further concern is
   that the existence or pending state of a transaction handle can
   itself be sensitive: to avoid confirming a handle to an unauthorized

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   requester, a PPS should not distinguish, in its observable behavior,
   between a handle that does not exist and one the requester is not
   authorized to access.

   A PPS handles identity data and is exposed to request-volume abuse,
   so operators should apply rate limiting and should retain identity
   data only as long as operationally necessary.

9.  IANA Considerations

   This document has no IANA actions.

10.  References

10.1.  Normative References

   [I-D.ietf-stir-certificate-transparency]
              Wendt, C., Śliwa, R., Fenichel, A., and V. A. Gaikwad,
              "STI Certificate Transparency", Work in Progress,
              Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-stir-certificate-transparency-
              02, 18 May 2026, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/
              draft-ietf-stir-certificate-transparency-02>.

   [I-D.wendt-stir-cert-tn-attr-ext]
              Wendt, C. and R. Śliwa, "TN Attribute Certificate
              Extension for STI Certificates", Work in Progress,
              Internet-Draft, draft-wendt-stir-cert-tn-attr-ext-00, 6
              July 2026, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-
              wendt-stir-cert-tn-attr-ext-00>.

   [I-D.wendt-stir-vesper]
              Wendt, C. and R. Śliwa, "VESPER - Verifiable STI
              Presentation and Evidence for RTU", Work in Progress,
              Internet-Draft, draft-wendt-stir-vesper-07, 31 March 2026,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-wendt-stir-
              vesper-07>.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119>.

   [RFC3261]  Rosenberg, J., Schulzrinne, H., Camarillo, G., Johnston,
              A., Peterson, J., Sparks, R., Handley, M., and E.
              Schooler, "SIP: Session Initiation Protocol", RFC 3261,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC3261, July 2002,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3261>.

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   [RFC3986]  Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
              Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66,
              RFC 3986, DOI 10.17487/RFC3986, January 2005,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3986>.

   [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8174>.

   [RFC8224]  Peterson, J., Jennings, C., Rescorla, E., and C. Wendt,
              "Authenticated Identity Management in the Session
              Initiation Protocol (SIP)", RFC 8224,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8224, February 2018,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8224>.

   [RFC8225]  Wendt, C. and J. Peterson, "PASSporT: Personal Assertion
              Token", RFC 8225, DOI 10.17487/RFC8225, February 2018,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8225>.

   [RFC8226]  Peterson, J. and S. Turner, "Secure Telephone Identity
              Credentials: Certificates", RFC 8226,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8226, February 2018,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8226>.

   [RFC8816]  Rescorla, E. and J. Peterson, "Secure Telephone Identity
              Revisited (STIR) Out-of-Band Architecture and Use Cases",
              RFC 8816, DOI 10.17487/RFC8816, February 2021,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8816>.

   [RFC9060]  Peterson, J., "Secure Telephone Identity Revisited (STIR)
              Certificate Delegation", RFC 9060, DOI 10.17487/RFC9060,
              September 2021, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9060>.

   [RFC9447]  Peterson, J., Barnes, M., Hancock, D., and C. Wendt,
              "Automated Certificate Management Environment (ACME)
              Challenges Using an Authority Token", RFC 9447,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9447, September 2023,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9447>.

   [RFC9970]  Peterson, J. and C. Wendt, "Connected Identity for Secure
              Telephone Identity Revisited (STIR)", RFC 9970,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9970, June 2026,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9970>.

10.2.  Informative References

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   [RFC9888]  Peterson, J., "Out-of-Band Secure Telephone Identity
              Revisited (STIR) for Service Providers", RFC 9888,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9888, June 2026,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9888>.

Acknowledgments

   The authors thank the contributors of the STIR working group, whose
   out-of-band work informed the mechanism described in this document
   for PASSporT delivery signed with VESPER delegate certificates.

Authors' Addresses

   Chris Wendt
   Somos Inc.
   United States of America
   Email: chris@appliedbits.com

   Rob Śliwa
   Somos Inc.
   United States of America
   Email: robjsliwa@gmail.com

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